Life is just a bowl of cherry-red lettuce

Or maybe that’s cheery red lettuce. I’m bringing a full salad bowl to work nearly every day now. If I’d known how easy and satisfying growing lettuce was, maybe I’d have gotten off my duff earlier in spring years before this.
I’m enjoying watching the Five-Color Silverbeet Swiss Chard from Seed Savers, the yellow leaf in the center, and the “Marveille de Quatre Saisons,” or “Marvel of Four Seasons,” the red leaf that’s fourth from the left, from Botanical Interests, grow taller and fuller and more frilly by the day. It seems like the more I cut, the more they grow. They are sweet enough to eat plain, right out of the bowl while driving, except that a tiny green inchworm almost became a condiment.

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Curtis Jones, who co-founded Botanical Interests with his wife, Judy, says greens and lettuces are among the things so easy to grow that you’d be crazy not to, but in addition to being easy, I just think a plot full of lettuce is beautiful and feels abundant.

Nearly all the tomatoes I grew from seed have gone to their homes, and I’m having a little bit of empty nest syndrome. Because my back yard is getting a total re-do this summer, I didn’t want to plant any crops that would just have to be ripped out. Is this how a spider feels in the afterlife watching those eggs hatch into baby spiders and take wing?

Some tomatoes went to co-workers. Some went to fellow bloggers. ace commenter/food photographer Kitt, got a Stupice and two purple tomatillos. Six went to my wonderful next-door neighbor, Jeff, a retired rancher who loans me tools and trades dogsitting duties with me. I know he’ll care for them like he cares for everything; this is a guy whose garage floor you could eat off of.

Some are planted at my friend’s house in the foothills, a woman whose gardens in Iowa were a major motivators so many years ago, back when we were both wild and crazy girls who stayed out late and drank rotgut scotch and too many margaritas. (See her blog here.)

I still have a few tomatoes and a lot of peppers. And I think I’ll plant them in the proof of life garden, because it’s already on a drip system and the dirt is already dug, and because it makes me happy to see some food in that all-ornamental garden that now feeds only the bees and my own need for beauty. I’ll reclaim the kitchen table, perhaps just seeding some basil and leeks in flats on the back porch.

Thanks for the laugh, Susan! Spider moms may not be as ‘Charlotte’ as you think, though. Think of it – they stuff a bunch of eggs into a sac, then suspend it somewhere out of the way. The babies hatch out and live through their first molt within that silken womb along with a hundred or so siblings. Well, they have to dine on SOMETHING, and that leftover yolk only goes so far…yup, 100 go in, but only 40 or so leave. For those of us who grew up with a pesky brother or sister this life lesson comes a little too late to be useful.

BugBabe

Thanks for the laugh, Susan! Spider moms may not be as ‘Charlotte’ as you think, though. Think of it – they stuff a bunch of eggs into a sac, then suspend it somewhere out of the way. The babies hatch out and live through their first molt within that silken womb along with a hundred or so siblings. Well, they have to dine on SOMETHING, and that leftover yolk only goes so far…yup, 100 go in, but only 40 or so leave. For those of us who grew up with a pesky brother or sister this life lesson comes a little too late to be useful.

Becky Hensley is the co-founder of Share Denver - a community craft space in Park Hill. She's also the proud Ninja-in Chief of the Denver Craft Ninjas -- a women’s crafting collective dedicated to keeping the DIY spirit alive through laughter, shared skills, and cocktails.

Colorado native Mark Montano is an international designer, artist, author and television personality. He has appeared on TLC’s “While You Were Out” and “10 Years Younger,” as well as “My Celebrity Home” on the Style Network, “She’s Moving In” on We TV, “The Tony Danza Show” on ABC, and “My Home 2.0” on Fox.